Twenty-three
year old Miriam Poulsen has during her 22 years as a Jehovah's Witnesses experienced
five cases of sexual abuse against under age girl friends.

A
ten year old girl in Trige by Aarhus was abused for a longer period by her own
grandfather, who is one of the congregations so called elders.

A
seven year old girl in South Jutland was abused for seven years by her grandfather.
The case was exposed but the grandfather was never punished, even though everybody
in the congregation knew about the abuse.

An
elder in Koege abused his own ten year old daughter and her friend over a period
of three years.

This
is abuse that had no consequences for the guilty. Abuse that the girls could
not bring themselves to talk about to adults. Only Miriam and her close friends
got to hear the s tori es.

-
We didn’t dare say anything to the congregation, for fear of being disfellowshipped
or disgraced, says Miriam, who are no longer a member of Jehovah's Witnesses
and lives in Aarhus .

KISSING
GAMES

Miriam
was also herself subjected to one of the elder’s sexual advances.

She
was 12 years and were to be baptized. One of the elders of the congregation
was rehearsing the rules of Jehovah's Witnesses with her. This took place in
the basement of the Kingdom Hall in Thorshavn, Faroe Islands .

Miriam
was to answer questions posed to her by the elder.

-
At some point he asked me to come and sit on his lap. Then he told me to kiss
him every time I got a new question. And when I answered correctly he would
kiss me. This went on for one and a half hours. He held around my waist and
kept kissing me. He said that because he was one of the elders then it was God
who kissed me through him, she says.

-
Today I clearly rea liz e that this could have lead to something much more unpleasant,
perhaps rape.

The
fifth actual abuse case that Miriam knows about was a completed rape perpetrated
against was a girl from the Faroe Islands by the same elder who was playing
kissing games with Miriam.

ASHAMED
OF HERSELF

Miriam
was afraid to tell her parents or others in the congregation about the episode.

-
I had been raised to believe that the elders were always right. If someone accuses
an elder the others in the congregation will say that it is the acc user who
is to blame. I felt ashamed of the kisses for years afterwards. I believed there
was something wrong with me since the elder must always be in the right because
he is chose by God, she says.

-
Jehovah's Witnesses put rules before human beings. They are deeply hypocritical.
I encourage all Jehovah's Witnesses to fight against the code of secrecy.

Additional
facts

ILLEGAL

-It
sounds horrible, and it is certainly criminal.

P
rofessor of Law Eva Smith, has been presented with the rules that Jehovah's
Witnesses impose on their disciples regarding sexual abuse of children.

-
In such cases there is a particular duty to report suspicion or the acts. It
is illegal and punishable by Law to fail to report or to withhold such information
and it a criminal offence to encourage others to withhold information about
a criminal act, says the Professor of Law Eva Smith to Ekstra Bladet.

Jehovah-spokesman
Erik Joergensen maintains that the organization is operating wholly within the
boundaries of the law:

-
Definite, actual cases of abuse are obviously to be reported. It is merely false,
so called ‘repressed memories’ about sexual abuse that we have other rules about.

Thirty-nine
year old Dorte Tveiti still remembers the first time she was abused by her father.

-I
had on a light blue dress with mother of pearl buttons. I was about 3 years
old. It hurt terribly.

The
abuse which was combined with beatings and psychic terror against the whole
family until Dorte was 13.

GAVE
BIRTH ON THE LIVING ROOM TABLE

Then
she gave birth to her father’s child on the living room table. She remembers
that her father took the healthy crying baby out to the kitchen.

-
It suddenly became silent. Like someone had pressed a button.

-
No one has ever said it out loud but I know my father killed my baby.

No
body was found. Dorte was instructed by her parents not to breathe a word about
the birth to anyone. The murder was first in the media when Dorte Tveiti’s book
’Abuse – He stole my childhood’ was published in October 2003.

There
she describes her horrible childhood ordeal, and Dorte’s sister corroborated
the extensive use of violence and incest.

SYSTEMATIC
SEX ABUSE

Dorte
Tveiti witnessed as a child how a group of up to five Jehovah leaders, elders
was abusing and raping five children, she was herself the fifth child.

-There
were meetings with the elders. I think my father helped arrange them and showed
himself to be at their disposal. He wanted so much to be an elder.

Today
Dorte still remembers the names of the four other children which were present
at the elders meetings which could lat for hours. All of them were abused regularly
in the period when she was between five and twelve. Three of the children which
today are in their thirties are still members of Jehovah's Witnesses.

What
went on in those elders meetings was reported to the police thirty years later,
but they have dropped the investigation because of the long time that has passed
since it all happened. Dorte don’t want to say much more. It is only a few months
ago that members of her former congregation pestered her family with letters,
visits and phone calls.

SILENT
WITNESSES

In
Dorte’s world her father’s sex abuse dominates. But she never told anyone outside
the family. Silence was widespread in the little congregation in Himmerland.

-
Not myself, my mother or my siblings told anyone that I was abused by my father.
Partly because it was a closed congregation, where problems hushed up, partly
because we were terrified of my father that one day beat me so hard that I vomited
blood because I had tried to tell a teacher about it all.

-
And then it was the congregation where such matters was silently accepted. There
was several who did the same thing.

NO
ONE TO TURN TO

The
knowledge that child abuse wasn’t isolated only to herself but several children
meant that she didn’t know who to talk to. Who in her little world would be
for or against child abuse? And where could she seek comfort?

-
Like all the others I attended the meetings held by Jehovah's Witnesses three
times a week. I couldn’t understand how the elders could preach about being
good to one another when my father and others continued to hurt me.

They
call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses, and we see them standing on our doorsteps
evangelizing, or when they want to distribute their unreadable magazine, the
Watchtower on front of the Grocery store on Saturdays

Otherwise
we don't see much of the members of this sect, although there are 20,000 of
them in Denmark .

That
is to say they prefer to live isolated from other people. They take the joy
out of their children’s lives with strange rules of not celebrating Christmas
or birthdays. Talented youth are prevented from getting a proper education and
are instead placed in a cleaning service run by some sect member where they
dont run the risk of being influenced by mixing with normal people.

This
misanthropic sect is known to ruthlessly split families which violate thei r
r ules. A totalitarian mentality which reminds us of the Tvind movement. Children
are being separated from their parents, or spouses from each other with threats
of expulsion from this insane community, of which the members are hypnotized
to blind adherence. Under threats of losing eternal life which is exclusively
for the sects true believers.

The
foundation for this whole degrading circus are some crazy rules which are allegedly
drawn from the Bible by the sects American headquarters. Cunningly the people
are indoctrinated, people which isn't the fastest animals in the wood, which
often find themselves in some life crisis where they can be easily picked up
by Witnesses pretending to care.

It
is tempting to just leave this mendacious nuisance to its own devices. But the
time dictates the opposite: Knock in the windows of the so called Kingdom Halls,
and clean them up.

As
will be seen in today's paper many children are harmed by this sect by being
subjected to sexual abuse, and then being forced to remain silent about what
has happened.

A
young woman's courageous disclosure of the indecent life behind the sanctimonious
façade indicate that the police is starting to take an interest in the conditions
in this environment, where it is a downright rule that knowledge of sexual abuse
is to be concealed, unless the abuse is very recent.

This
isn’t only sick. It is illegal. Sexual abuse of Children is something everyone
has a duty to report. It is illegal to keep silent.

It
is about time that current or former members conquer their fear, comes forward
with their knowledge about what is going on in this prison camp of souls that
with much justification can be called Satan's Witnesses.